Kathie Lee Gifford is recovering after a nasty fall left her with a fractured pelvis.
The 70-year-old former “Today” show host revealed she broke her pelvis in two places and was hospitalized for over a week after taking a tumble following hip replacement surgery.
Gifford explained the situation to People in an interview published on Tuesday, revealing she “weakened” her body after moving “300 books by myself” during book signings in Nashville. “It’s my own fault,” she shared.
Gifford said she “tripped” the following day while answering her door.
“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Gifford shared with the outlet. “And the next thing you know, I am back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis: the front and the back. That’s more painful than anything I went through with the hip. The pelvis is unbelievably painful. but anyway, here I am.”
The former “Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee” star called the experience “humbling,” stating she decided to stay in the hospital for a full week because “I don’t trust myself.”
“You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older,” she said. “And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”
Gifford found the bright side of the mishap.
“It’s summer for everybody but me,” she joked. “But it’s OK. I’m going to get out to my little farm one of these days and stick my feet in my salt pool. The Lord is telling me it’s time to slow down. I’ve been running my whole life. The Lord is telling me, ‘You’ve planted a gazillion roses. Try smelling them.'”
The longtime TV personality recently had hip replacement surgery, revealing her recovery was “one of the most painful situations of my entire life.”
Gifford recalled her doctor telling her: “You climbed mountains, you made movies, you got on stages. You never took off your high heels, and you kept going and that’s why you’re going through what you’re going through.”
Despite her recent health issues, Gifford has no regrets about how she’s lived her life.
“[I ask myself] would I change that? No, I was doing what God put me on this earth to do. Every year of it, I was doing what He called me to do,” she told People following her hip replacement surgery.
Gifford has a lot to celebrate, including the release of her new book, “Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior.”
The historical nonfiction gives “deep insight to how Herod came to power, how corruption and an ancient evil threatened the stability of a nation, and how a teenage Mary was called to traverse these obstacles to bring the Savior, Jesus, our living hope, into the world,” according to the book’s description.
Gifford credited her son, Cody, 34, for the idea, saying he “convinced” her that “these are stories that need to be told because people need hope.”
“I don’t know how much time the Lord has me still on this earth, but for whatever time it is I pray that I would be useful… that I would be kind and helpful, and loving to people,” Gifford said. “I am a strong woman, but I’m a woman who for 60 years has been trying to do godly work, trying to do the right thing, trying to love people, [and] trying to represent the kingdom of God.”
